Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/59

No. 13] upon; but even such a document as Vergennes's despatch (No. 216) is a special plea, and does not state the whole truth.

In the next place, even contemporaries had not all the same opportunities for seeing things. Maury (No. 37) knew that Patrick Henry had made a tremendous speech against him, but he probably understood the law of his case very imperfectly. Dr. Douglass's views of his countrymen (No. 50) are tinged by his conviction that other doctors did not understand how to treat small-pox; Edmund Burke (No. 44) was at a long distance from the colonies; Colonel Winslow (No. 126) did not take seriously to heart the misery of the transported Acadians; Captain Pausch (No. 179) felt a natural hostility toward the rival British troops. Nearly all the pieces in this volume are the statements of eye-witnesses, recorded at or near the time; but even they must have taken flying rumors, as did Dunmore (No. 154), Williams (No. 160), and Pynchon (No. 208). Violent prejudices and prepossessions make it necessary to supplement such narratives as Lawson's (No. 16), Sam Johnson's (No. 156), and Drayton's (No. 157) by calmer testimony and by statements from the other side; and this is especially necessary in the intensity of feeling attending such a period as the Revolution. We cannot understand the real causes and force of that mighty movement unless we realize how strong was the opposition; inasmuch as even good and honest writers may not have the gift of lucid description, and may flounder about like Dr. Douglass (No. 50) or Thomas Story (No. 98).

But while secondary writers may correct the errors of the original writers, and show the relation of one event with another, they have also their prejudices and make their mistakes. One of the first lessons to be learned by a child beginning the study of history is that it is difficult and often impossible to get at the exact truth, just as it is hard to get at the facts of every-day current events. To the secondary book one must look for a survey of the whole field,—an indispensable service; to sources we must still turn for that reality, that flavor of real human life and thought, which may be had only by reading the words written while history was making.